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Would a wall stop illegal immigrants?

Tricky

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Tricky
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Something there is that does not love a wall. Illegal immigrants, for one, but they are not alone. As it turns out, Chinese mining companies do not love walls either.
China's heritage bureau has launched a probe into Chinese mining companies alleged to have brought down part of the Great Wall to allow their trucks to avoid paying road tolls, state media reported on Thursday.
...
"Big trucks carrying coal had even opened a big gap in the Great Wall to make a coal shipping thoroughfare," the paper said.
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Okay, I know that the Great Wall of China is not the same thing as the proposed fence along the Mexico/US border. Still, when you think that a company can simply tear down a part of something as big as the Great Wall, it makes you wonder about the futility of trying to keep a mere fence intact. When people want to cross badly enough, they will find a way. Of all the ways the US could address the problem of illegal immigrants, building a fence is probably the biggest waste of money. Do you think maybe they could find some way to make it a tourist attraction, like the Great Wall?
 
Tricky said:
Something there is that does not love a wall. Illegal immigrants, for one, but they are not alone. As it turns out, Chinese mining companies do not love walls either.


Okay, I know that the Great Wall of China is not the same thing as the proposed fence along the Mexico/US border. Still, when you think that a company can simply tear down a part of something as big as the Great Wall, it makes you wonder about the futility of trying to keep a mere fence intact. When people want to cross badly enough, they will find a way. Of all the ways the US could address the problem of illegal immigrants, building a fence is probably the biggest waste of money. Do you think maybe they could find some way to make it a tourist attraction, like the Great Wall?
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A wall backed up by a netword of Observation Posts, mortars, artillery, and aerial surveillance, and patrolling, would work rather well. Customs and DEA already provide considerable aerial surveillance of the border.

The Berlin Wall was pretty effective in stopping traffic across a border. It was backed up by guns, and the will to use them, but they were aimed at keeping people in, rather than out.

Whether or not the political will exists to put a serious barrier up on our borders, and to make the cost of crossing it, be it for smuggling or immigrating, too high to risk is open to question.

DR
 
A wall doesn't have to stop illegal immigration to be worth something, it only has to slow it down. Inhospitable deserts DO slow illegal immigration down, and a wall probably would too. Mexico certainly thinks so, which is why they've got one on their own southern border.
 
The wall may well provide some impediment, but the immigrants are endlessly inventive.
Unless the physical barricade is coupled with constant surveillance, patrol, and so forth, I doubt it will prove very effective. It's that aspect that begins to become more costly than the wall itself.
 
Depends how high and wide the wall is, doesn't it? I submit that a 3,000-foot high wall would be pretty effective; a 3,000 millimeter one would not.

What DR said. If you put up a wall and just walk away from it, it won't be at all effective. But as Ziggurat says, it doesn't have to be 100% effective; screens on your windows won't keep all the insects out of your house, but if one gets torn, you're going to replace it.
 
BPSCG said:
What DR said. If you put up a wall and just walk away from it, it won't be at all effective. But as Ziggurat says, it doesn't have to be 100% effective; screens on your windows won't keep all the insects out of your house, but if one gets torn, you're going to replace it.
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Are you really comparing humans to insects? "Oh, no! The illegal imigrants are coming to provide us with with a cheap labor force without which our economy would suffer dramatically! Close the screen door, ma!"
 
ImaginalDisc said:
Are you really comparing humans to insects? "Oh, no! The illegal imigrants are coming to provide us with with a cheap labor force without which our economy would suffer dramatically! Close the screen door, ma!"
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Analogies and metaphors often compare one thing to another for the pont of illustration.

Unbunch the panties.

DR
 
An effective wall is a ridiculous fantasy, unless one wants to expand government by silly amounts, to fix a problem the US has with low unemployment rates.

The build-a-bigger-wall solution is akin the the War on Drugs solutions. Throw more money to fix a victimless crime that could be eliminated by
simply decriminalizing immigration.
 
ImaginalDisc said:
Are you really comparing humans to insects? "Oh, no! The illegal imigrants are coming to provide us with with a cheap labor force without which our economy would suffer dramatically! Close the screen door, ma!"
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Y'know, as I was writing that post, I wondered to myself which of The Usual Suspects would shriek at the analogy.

Yes, Mexicans are filthy six-legged vermin and we should invade their country with tanker trailers full of Raid and Black Flag and exterminate them before swarms of them overrun us and rob us of our Precious Bodily Fluids.

There, you happy?
 
shecky said:
The build-a-bigger-wall solution is akin the the War on Drugs solutions. Throw more money to fix a victimless crime that could be eliminated by simply decriminalizing immigration.
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My parents were immigrants. Are you calling my mother a criminal?
 
I say summary execution of illegal immigrants upon detection. Build that wall, put 'em up against that wall, and shoot 'em.
 
Darth Rotor said:
Analogies and metaphors often compare one thing to another for the pont of illustration.

Unbunch the panties.

DR
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Don't get angry with me just because I'm mocking the delusional fantasy that the U.S. is going to build a 1951 mile-long, heavily patrolled fence to keep out illegal imigrants from the Mexican border when the barrier of scores of miles of trecherous waters and regular Coast Guard patrols cannot keep out thousands of Haitian and Cuban migrants willing to risk their lives on sieves with sails from landing on Florida's beaches.

The project, if it went ahead, would be a white elephant that does nothing to solve the "problem."
 
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headscratcher4 said:
I say summary execution of illegal immigrants upon detection. Build that wall, put 'em up against that wall, and shoot 'em.
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It's consistent with Mexican cultural values, given Maximillian's fate. Your suggestion seems in line with a "kinder and gentler policy:" make 'em feel right at home. :p

Trouble is, how does one know it isn't a mentally challenged 'Merican trying to get home? :eek: And what about the logistics? Consider the cost in cigarettes and blind folds. Have these been budgeted for? :confused:

DR
 
If you build a ten-foot wall then people will start using 11-foot ladders.
 
BPSCG said:
Y'know, as I was writing that post, I wondered to myself which of The Usual Suspects would shriek at the analogy.

Yes, Mexicans are filthy six-legged vermin and we should invade their country with tanker trailers full of Raid and Black Flag and exterminate them before swarms of them overrun us and rob us of our Precious Bodily Fluids.

There, you happy?
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Don't be coy, you can be more racist then that. You haven't even asked that Mexico be nuked yet. You're not even trying any more.
 
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